Silent Hill 2 Dev Has Harsh Way to Describe Studio’s Older Games

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Key Takeaways

  • The director and producer of the Silent Hill 2 remake isn’t fond of Bloober Team’s older games.
  • The studio released several poorly reviewed games before finding its niche in 2016 with the release of Layers of Fear.
  • Bloober Team recently announced its next horror game, titled Cronos: The New Dawn.

As a seasoned gamer who’s seen the rise and fall of many game studios, I must admit that Bloober Team has managed to pique my interest with their recent endeavors. Their journey from creating relatively unknown games to becoming a respected name in the horror genre is nothing short of impressive. The director’s candid admission about their past work might have been blunt, but it’s refreshing to see a studio that’s not afraid to acknowledge its mistakes and learn from them.

A member from Bloober Team, who oversaw the production of the recent remake of Silent Hill 2, expresses that he doesn’t hold their past projects in high regard. The Silent Hill 2 remake, which was launched in early October and received overwhelmingly positive feedback, took many gamers by surprise as they had initial concerns about its quality before release. This remake of Konami’s 2001 horror masterpiece has set a new record for Bloober Team, boasting an average score of 87 on OpenCritic, making it their highest-rated game over the past fifteen years.

It can be reasonably concluded that Bloober Team initially struggled in their early years, putting out games like A-Men, Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder, Basement Crawl, which were generally not well-known or received positive reviews. However, 2016 marked a significant change for the studio as they released Layers of Fear, a critically acclaimed horror game that helped establish Bloober Team’s identity in the horror genre. Since then, the team has produced several decent, though not exceptional, horror games such as Observer, Blair Witch, The Medium, and a sequel to Layers of Fear. Most recently, they unveiled their upcoming horror game, Cronos: The New Dawn, during Xbox’s Partner Preview showcase, which is a new intellectual property.

Weeks following the successful launch of Silent Hill 2, the remake’s director and producer Jacek Zieba sat down with Gamespot for an exclusive chat about Konami Bimbo Studio’s past, present, and future. With the unveiling of Cronos: The New Dawn and Bloober Team establishing itself as a horror powerhouse, Zieba expressed the studio’s desire to refine its unique identity. “We aim to carve out our own corner, and we believe we’ve found it,” Zieba shared. “Now, we’re eager to build upon this foundation.” The journey of growth is intricate, but it also unfolds naturally – much like how Layers of Fear came about. As the team reflected on their past projects, they collectively thought, “We’ve made some less-than-stellar games in the past, but we can evolve and grow.

Bloober Team Producer Calls Studio’s Past Games “Sh*tty”

Zieba explicitly states that the “subpar games” he’s discussing are those Bloober Team produced prior to 2016’s Layers of Fear, which significantly elevated the studio in the gaming world. However, given the high praise the studio has received for its Silent Hill 2 remake after a period of somewhat average horror games post-Layers of Fear, one might also see Zieba as referring to Bloober’s entire pre-Silent Hill 2 catalog. It seems evident that Bloober Team aims to sustain its recent success and be recognized as a top horror studio within the industry. A potential strategy for this, following the remake of a classic 20-year-old horror game, is developing an original intellectual property like Cronos: The New Dawn, which is already being likened to Electronic Arts’ celebrated Dead Space series by horror enthusiasts.

We’re aiming to discover our unique area of expertise, and we believe we’ve found it. Now, we plan to grow alongside this niche. The way this growth occurs can be intricate, but it often happens naturally, similar to the evolution of Layers of Fear in 2016, where team members said, “We made some subpar games previously, but now we can develop and improve.

With Bloober Team doubling down on horror and becoming a more well-respected studio as a result of Silent Hill 2, fans of horror games should absolutely have Bloober on their radar moving forward, and Cronos: The New Dawn already has tons of buzz surrounding it. Since it’s been stamped with a 2025 release window, there’s a chance Cronos could show up again with more information in December at Geoff Keighley’s 2024 Game Awards.

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2024-10-21 23:05